The Menaion

The Menaion
is a liturgical book containing the proper hymns and prayers for the
saints' feasts and commemorations on the fixed calendar - that is,
those which fall on the same
date each year. There is one Menaion volume for each month of
the liturgical year, from September to August. The feasts of
the Lord, the Theotokos, and the saints, and the various historical
commemorations that make up the fixed calendar, form a counterpoint to
the moveable feasts of the Paschal cycle, so that every liturgical year
partakes of "both old and new."

Strictly speaking, each volume
of this liturgical book is a Menaion, and the entire collection is
known as Menaia (Gk.
Minaia,
from min,
"month"; Slav. Minéya).
But since the directions in the various service
books call
for hymns to be taken "from the Menaion", the word for an
individual volume has come to refer to the entire collection as well.

Since a full set of Menaia is
quite cumbersome, a smaller volume
containing only the greater feasts of the fixed calendar is sometimes
used instead; this abridged service book is called a Festal Menaion (Slav.
Prázdičnaya
Minéya) .

A volume called the General Menaion
(Slav. Obščaya
Minéya)
contains common services for each of the classes of saints. These
services can be used for saints not listed in the Menaion, or whose
feasts are celebrated with more solemnity than appointed in the
calendar (for example, on the feast day of a church's patron saint).

The Menaion normally contains
only a very brief account, if any, of
the life of each saint or event commemorated. The stories of
the
saints and commemorations are contained in the Menologion.

Contents of the Menaion

A Menaion volume contains an
entry for each day of the month, with
the names of the saints commorated, the class and rank of the
commemoration, and the hymns to be used. Minor feasts may
only
have a few proper hymns, or a pointer to the common service in the
General Menaion, while the entry for a polyeleos- or vigil-rank feast
may have several pages of hymns.

A Festal Menaion will normally
include at least those of the Twelve Great Feasts that fall on the
fixed calendar:

The
Birth of the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary (September 8)
The Exaltation of the Life-Giving Cross (September 14)
The Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple
(November 21)
The Nativity of our Lord, God and Savior, Jesus Christ
(December 25)
The Holy Theophany of our Lord, God and Savior, Jesus Christ
(January 6)
The Meeting of our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ with the
elder Simeon (February 2)
The Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos (March 25)
The Transfiguration of our Lord, God and Savior, Jesus Christ
(August 6)
The Dormition of our Most Holy Lady the Theotokos (August 15)

A
Festal Menaion may also contain other
great feasts such as September 1, the first day of the liturgical year,
and June 29, the feast of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul.

The
General Menaion includes common offices (sets of hymns for each
service) for each of the classes of saints:

Common of
the Theotokos
Common of a Prophet
Common of an Apostle
Common of two or more Apostles
Common of a Hierarch
Common of two or more Hierarchs
Common of a Venerable or Fool for Christ
Common of two or more Venerables or Fools for Christ
Common of a Martyr
Common of two or more Martyrs
Common of a Priest-Martyr
Common of two or more Priest-Martyrs
Common of a Venerable Martyr
Common of two or more Venerable Martyrs
Common of a Woman-Martyr
Common of a Venerable Woman-Martyr
Common of two or more Women-Martyrs or Venerable Women-Martyrs
Common of a Venerable Woman
Common or two or more Venerable Women
Common of Confessors
Common of Unmercenary Healers

("Venerable"
as a class of saints refers to monastic saints - monks or nuns.)

The Menaion in Church Slavonic

The Velikij Sbórnik
included the materials from the Menaion for Vespers, Matins and the
Divine Liturgy for all of the greater feasts in the fixed calendar, as
well as a (partial) General Menaion.

No new Menaion was published
as part of the Ruthenian reforms
of the 1940's; however, some parts of the General Menaion can
be
found in the Ruthenian Časoslóv,
and the Ruthenian Apostol contains an updated calendar and the hymns of
the Divine Liturgy for each saint and commemoration in the fixed
calendar.

The Menaion in English

In 1969, Mother Mary and
Archimandrite (now Bishop) Kallistos Ware published a ground-breaking Festal Menaion
in English, which included outlines of the festal services, and
extensive rubrics for the nine Great Feasts on the fixed calendar.

The hymns of the Divine Liturgy
for the greater feasts can be found in Msgr. William Levkulic's The Divine Liturgy: A
Book of Prayer
(1978), and the publications of Monsignor Lekvulic and the Byzantine
Seminary Press, taken together, provide much of the hymnody for the
great feasts.

In 1985, the Sisters of Saint
Basil the Great, Uniontown, Pennsylvania published a Festal Menaion
containing thirty-seven feasts, as well as services for several
monastic patronal feasts Like the other Uniontown
publications,
it has only a bare minimum of rubrics, and canons in particular are
usually presented in abbreviated form. However, because of
its
broad usefulness, it has become a standard
reference in the
Byzantine Catholic Church for those parishes celebrating services
beyond the Divine Liturgy.

The Metropolitan Cantor
Institute has prepared a twelve-volume Menaion
for the Divine Liturgy. Each volume has the
month's commemorations from the RuthenianApostol,
with troparia, kontakia, prokeimena, alleluia and communion hymns, all
set to the traditional prostopinije melodies. The MCI has
also prepared texts and music for
Matins and Vespers on the greater feasts, and Vespers material for many
additional
saints whose feast days have fallen on Saturday evenings in the past
few years. Consult the Liturgical
Calendar
to see which services are available.

A Menaion in monthly volumes,
according to the Melkite usage, has been published by Sophia Press.

A complete Menaion in the Great
Russian usage is available from
Saint John of Kronstadt Press. The services use Jacobean
(King
James-style) English, but are exceptionally complete, and are available
as both loose-leaf services and bound volumes.

No complete General Menaion has
appeared in print in English since Nicholas Orloff's somewhat uneven The General Menaion
(1899). Such a volume is badly needed.

A General Menaion following the
Great Russian usage is available on-line,
courtesy of St. Sergius of Radonezh Russian Orthodox Cathedral, Parma,
Ohio.